NEST Files: Alien Encounters
by Steelfeathers
Summary: A series of one-shots related to my 'Instabiliy' universe. Chapter 4: Ironhide encounters Annabelle Lennox for the first time. The results are not what he would have expected.
1. It started with an iPod

A/N: The following ficlets are all ideas that have popped into my head at one point or another that don't really fit into the main story line of 'Instability'. NOTE: These one-shots do not go in chronological order, and they do not all take place after ROTF.

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NEST Files: Alien Encounters

Disk One: "It started with an Ipod..."

Approximate Terran Date: 3 months after the battle of Mission City

_The following data logs are the joint property of the NEST Command/ Intelligent Systems teams and the Autobots under the leadership of NBE 4, Terran designation: Optimus Prime. All within are classified Top Secret and are not to be removed in part or in whole at any time without express written permission and supervision of the parties listed above. Additionally, any information acquired herein may not be conveyed either verbally, visually, or by written document to anyone without clearance to access the Top Secret security level. All violators will be_---

::Okay, dis is boring. What do you say we liven this up a little, Wheeljack?::

::Doing so would be highly unorthodox and most likely against regulations.....Let's do it::

::Alright! Here's da NEW list of rules for dis secret base of ours! Enjoy. Skids, out!::

Living with giant robotic aliens: A how-to guide for day-to-day survival

Rule number 1: When in doubt, duck.

Rule number 2: NEVER get into a prank war with Optimus Prime. He gives as good as he gets......

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Sergeant Bobby Epps used to be convinced that the infamous Twins were the biggest pair of troublemakers in the galaxy. Within three hours of their arrival, they had downloaded every conceivable language known to man and began putting together the most creative compound-curses he had ever heard. Man, those guys could swear in _paragraphs_ when they really got going; one time when a D-Con had gotten in a lucky shot on Mudflap, the orange freak had sworn up and down for a solid twenty minutes without repeating himself, only some of which involved pig-latin and Swahili.

Epps always pitied whatever poor sap became their target for the day. Not that he didn't laugh like hell when they found all their gear dyed pink or ended up covered from head to toe in shaving cream and lobster bisque and refused to ever mention a single word about the incident, but he had to give the aliens credit-- they had _style_.

But he never would have guessed that picking a fight with Optimus would have an even more devastating fallout. He probably should have seen it coming, given the way the robot wiped the floor with whatever sideshow freak he was fighting, but it was hard to picture him running up the flag with someone's Hane's briefs when he was off being serious and diplomatic all the time. Especially since Epps half expected an 'indubitably' to pop out of his mouth at any moment.

And that had probably been Will's first mistake-- underestimating the extent of Optimus' alien badass-ness.

The entire incident started innocently enough. They were on another mission, same old thing as always, some Decepticreep blowing shit up somewhere. For once Will had actually remembered to bring his own iPod for the drive, leaving Epps to enjoy his own in peace. Man, that guy was a music _hog_-- he was always trying something or other to distract him so that he could snatch his iPod for himself. But anyway, on that particular mission Will had finally remembered to stop being a whinning pussy and bring his own music like any real man.

Things had started off well enough-- they rode in Optimus' cab, driving along some dirt road or other, heads bobbing slightly to the music coming in one ear bud while they left the other one out to listen to mission particulars. Boring stuff, but necessary. Epps didn't want to have his ass shot off by a D-Con who got in a lucky shot when he wasn't paying attention. But even keeping on high alert, that freaky little scorpion dude still managed to sneak up on them. It had tried to burrow in under the big guy's wheels and pop out at them through the floor of the cab, but Optimus was slick enough to catch on to the plan before the bug could get away with it and ran right over it, tossing the two of them out so he could transform.

Now normally one or the other of them kept a NEST laptop on hand for things like satellite uplinks and signal triangulations. Optimus always knew about the laptops-- expected them, really-- and was careful to adjust his transformation so that they didn't end up crushed little pancakes of wires and circuitry. But when the bug robot suprised them, they had to jump out in a hurry. Epps had his iPod in his hand when his boots hit the dirt; Lennox dropped his on the seat and left without it. They grabbed their guns, Optimus transformed....and, well, that was the end of Will's newly acquired iPod.

The good news-- Optimus was able to take out the bug before it had the chance to impale either one of them with its big-ass stinger. The bad news-- Will bitched like a little girl all the way back to base when he discovered the pieces of rubble that used to be his iPod. Epps had to crank the volume all the way up on some Metallica to block him out. You'd think he could be a little more grateful that Optimus had saved his sorry hide, but apparently killing his music was tantamount to killing his second child.

Anyway, things only went downhill from there.

Lennox kept up his snit for a good week or two, though thankfully he laid off the whining after the first day. Otherwise, Epps might have been the one to make the first move rather than Optimus.

--Actually, to be fair, the wise Jesus alien probably would have put up with the bitching without a word if it hadn't gone any farther than that. Not that he ended up saying a word in the end anyhow, but things wouldn't have turned into an all out war if Lennox had left well enough alone.

After the fact the man swore up and down that he'd had nothing to do with the posters that mysteriously showed up one night all over base. Even Epps would have suspected the Twins were behind it, except that the Twins wouldn't think of something as subtle as wallpapering the rooms and hallways-- even the bathrooms and breakrooms-- with the 8 by 11 ads. Epps himself had saved a copy, as had everyone else on base. He was almost certain that someone had also posted a scan online, and that close to ten thousand responses had been logged, including at least a dozen marriage proposals. There were no pictures on any of the ads, but the bold black letters screamed:

"Alien Male w/ Bod of Steel seeks like-minded Female, Alien optional. Likes: fighting evil, trucks, big guns, red & blue, martinis on the rocks, taking long walks on the beach. All responders must have robo kinks and be willing to save the world. Evil aliens need not apply."

Optimus never said a word about the ads, of course, but even Epps could tell that a line had been crossed. It was ON.

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Even after living with a sunflower yellow robot in his garage for three months, Sam had still not completely adjusted to the fact that not only did aliens exist, he had helped _save the world _with them. Woah. Heady stuff, there. And not something he was entirely comfortable with yet.

Not that he had anything against Bumblebee (or against having a bitchin Camaro to ride to school in everyday-- eat your heart out, Trent), but sometimes it still freaked him out when the car suddenly turned left while he was turning the wheel right, or when the front bumper edged forward to nuzzle into his hand when he drifted his fingers along the liquid smooth yellow paint. Or the way an embarassingly inappropriate song full of innudeno would come on when he was in a crappy mood-- or the way the doors would lock themselves, the seat back lowering into a reclining position, when Bee was feeling particularly clingy and wanted him to 'sleep over'.

He guessed it had something to do with the fact that he still couldn't fully process the existence of aliens. ALIENS. One moment he would be an average kid heading to his car after school, and the next the realization that he was walking up to a robot, an ALIEN robot, would slam into him with the force of a train. His psychology teacher probably would have labeled it selective denial. Whatever it was, it frequently made him tremble and go weak in the knees with revived fear and awe.

So when one spring day he looked out the window from his math class and saw a hulking Peterbilt truck decorated with red and blue flames parked in the student lot, he kinda freaked. Luckily his stern algebra teacher wouldn't let him immediately spring up and rush outside, otherwise he might have done something humiliating like glomp onto the front grill and squeal excitedly at the fact that an ALIEN had come to his school to see him. Either that, or run in terror out the back door. By the time the bell rang to signal the end of school, he felt mostly in control of himself once more. He even gave himself a mental pat on the back for being calm enough to _walk_ to his locker, gather his stuff, and walk out to the parking lot without making a scene.

Sam knew better than to verbally greet the truck (especially with so many curious stares directed at him), so he simply reached for the door handle. Breathing a sigh of relief when the door swung open easily at his touch, he hoisted himself into Optimus' cabin and shut the door.

"So....what's up, Optimus?" He greeted the air, putting on his seat belt. The truck shifted into gear and edged its way out of the parking lot.

"I'm kidnapping you." To Sam's surprise, the alien sounded both teasing AND serious. He was just glad that Optimus hadn't responded with something along the lines of 'Starscream's attacking your house. And oh, by the way, you need to save the world again.'

Sam grinned. "Cool. So does this count as an alien abduction?"

The truck pulled out onto the busy road and shouldered its way into the stream of cars.

A confused click. "You seem to want it to. For what reason?"

"Getting abducted by aliens is one of those things on my life long to-do list."

"But you are accompanying me willingly." Optimus pointed out. Sam pressed his elbow on the button to roll down the window and stuck his head out into the whipping air.

"Help, help. Someone help me. I'm being kidnapped by aliens." He waited, then pulled his head back in and rolled the window up.

"Oh well, I tried. I guess I'm doomed."

Optimus rumbled a laugh. "In that case, you have my permission to eliminate 'alien abduction' from your list."

They road in silence for a while, then Sam suddenly picked up on the fact that they were heading in the opposite direction from his house.

"Um...Optimus? Two questions-- where's Bumblebee, and why are we heading _away_ from my house? I know you know where it is (you _did_ wreck my backyard, after all)."

"I requested that Bumblebee 'take the afternoon off', as it were. I told him that I needed your assistance on a small errand, and he agreed to allow me to retrieve you from school. He will be awaiting your return at your house."

Suspicion coiled in Sam's gut, his shoulders tensing at the word 'errand'.

"Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm going to have to back out if you need me to go destroy another Allspark or something."

"No, Sam. This time you will not be in danger. But I do, however, require human assistance."

Sam raised an eyebrow at the instrument pannel. "'Human assistance'? Why? What for?"

But Optimus-- radiating something like embarassment-- clammed up and refused to say another word for the rest of the drive. Luckily, it didn't take long to reach their destination. Less than two minutes later, the truck put on its right hand turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of the Post Office.

Sam looked curiously towards the innocent little white building, wondering if Megatron were crouching behind it, waiting to spring out at them. But the very thought made his heart race and his palms grow slick on the steering wheel, so firmly telling himself that there wouldn't be so many people milling about if there was an evil robot in the back, he forced the image from his mind and discreetly wiped his hands on his pants. He didn't know if the Cybertronians were disgusted by clammy plams, but he didn't want to risk grossing out Optimus.

Optimus found a place to park in the back and turned off his engine. He hesitated again, once more seeming reluctant, and the reason for his apparent embarassment suddenly dawned on Sam, causing him to chortle with furiously supressed laughter-- the alien was _embarassed_ because he needed someone small enough to fit through the door of the Post Office to go get his mail. Oh, the irony! He could dish out the beatdowns like nobody's buisness when it came to Decepticons, but the great alien leader was stymied by something as simple as a human-sized door.

Finally squashing the impulse to collapse into peals of laughter, Sam let out a sigh and asked, "What do you need me to get, Optimus?"

The seatbelt retracted on its own, though the door remained firmly shut for privacy. Now that his secret was out, Optimus wasted no time in telling him what to do.

"There is a small package inside post office box 233. I would ask that you retreive it and bring it back to me, as I cannot obviously reach it for myself."

"Not without taking the roof off, that is-- but that's a really bad idea, so please don't try it."

In response, the glove compartment popped open, revealing a small key.

"Please hurry."

"Geez, what is it with you guys and hurrying?" Sam snatched up the key and pushed open the door to the truck. "Don't you ever take time to stop and smell the flowers? You know, do the whole relax and unwind thing?"

He jumped to the ground, yelping in surprise as the door nearly swung closed on his butt. The Optimus version of a 'shut up before I shoot you' slap. Sam snapped off a salute, ignoring the bewildered glances of the other patrons milling about the parking lot that had stopped to stare at the brightly colored truck, and went into the building.

A back room off the main lobby held the floor-to-ceiling stacks of P.O boxes. He swiftly scanned down the rows to number 233 and unlocked it, pulling out the small box within. About the size of a paper back novel and very heavy, the sticker on the front nevertheless made him snort with laughter once again. It was addressed to 'Optimus Prime'. He guessed the Decepticons were too low tech to try hunting through the snail mail for references to the Autobots.

Package tucked under his arm, he hurried outside to the parked Peterbilt and clambered back into the cab. As Optimus laboriously turned around and exited the parking lot, Sam held the small box to his ear and shook it.

"Please stop, Sam. It is fragile, and you may irreversably damage it," the alien ordered. Sam complied, setting the package in his lap and scrunitizing the label once more.

"What is it?.....from the _'Harry Potter Contest Company'_? What the heck!?"

Now that he had the chance to really examine it, there was no mistaking the bobbing snitch buzzing in between the sparkly words.

"An online quiz agency. I achieved a perfect score on one of their advanced trivia quizzes, thus meriting the shipment of the prize you hold in your hands."

There were so many things wrong with the entire situation that he could only gape at the steering wheel, brain sputtering and shutting down with an error message and a small farting noise.

"....You read Harry Potter."

"Yes."

Pause.

"All seven books."

"I _do_ have occasion to pursue other activities besides fighting Decepticons, Sam."

"....and you took an online trivia quiz. And won."

"Yes. If you do not believe me, the evidence is there in your hands."

"Oh, I believe you," Sam slowly shook his head, "But now I have proof, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the world has gone completely bonkers. I mean, come on! No self respecting, butt-kicking alien should read Harry Potter! The two things just don't go together outside of some bizarro universe!!"

He paused for breath, watching the scenary flash by the window. They were almost back to his home.

"....which Hogwarts house did you test into?" He asked casually after a moment, accepting that he had entered the twilight zone and deciding to just go with it.

But apparently Optimus had revived from his embarassed mood and was feeling playful.

"Guess."

Without thinking, he answered, "Griffindor."

"No," the alien responded, to his surprise.

"Um....Ravenclaw?"

"No."

"Please don't tell me you're a Hufflepuff. That would just be messed up on so many levels."

Optimus let out an alien whirl of laughter, turning onto Sam's street. Less than thirty seconds.

"Slytherin?! I'd rather you were in Hufflepuff after all. Slytherins are _evil_, _EVIL_, in case you hadn't heard."

Bumblebee was waiting for them. Sam still hadn't found out what was in the package.

"So...what did you win?" He asked, when no answer seemed forthcoming.

"That's my little secret."

The truck pulled to a stop with a hiss of airbrakes, but Sam refused to take the hint when the door popped open of its own accord.

"Nuh uh. I went in and got this for you-- the least you could do is tell me what it is!"

Optimus sighed to himself, and gingerly shut the door.

"Very well. But I am swearing you to secrecy. If Lennox calls, you never saw me."

A feral grin spread from ear to ear across Sam's face. This was going to be interesting to watch.

"I swear on my stack of secret Playboy magazines. Now spill!"

So Optimus did.

Bumblebee jolted on his shocks in surprise when Sam began to roar with laughter.

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Nothing happened for a week or two after the wanted ad incident. Epps didn't know whether Optimus had decided not to retaliate, or was taking his time putting together the most brutal (though hopefully non-life threatening) prank possible. And he wasn't sure which possibility scared him more.

Then, to his astonishment, the big guy came back and _gave Lennox a new iPod_. A lot of money changed hands with that one. Apparently, the pool for how much of a beat down Lennox would get had been fairly large. Seeing the smug, triumphant look on Will's face when he held the shiny new device had been enough to make him need to go shoot something. Then, as he plugged his new conquest into his laptop to download some songs and discovered that it already had close to a thousand on it, Epps decided shooting something wasn't going to be enough-- he needed to blow something up, preferably something big and expensive that would make a very satisfying mushroom cloud.

But then, at the sight of precisely _which _songs were loaded onto Will's new iPod, the urge to set off an explosion turned into a whoop of victory. Especially when Will discovered that not only could he _not_ add any new songs or remove any old ones, every time he tried the song in question would begin to play at full volume, loud enough for everyone on base to hear.

_"--I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie wur-ur-urld!--"_

"Shit! Epps, this thing's going haywire!"

_"--life in plastic--"_

"It won't let me turn it off!"

_"--IT'S FANTASTIC!--"_

By this time a small crowd had begun to gather, humans and Autobots alike flocking to witness the source of the commotion.

"It's brand new! This is ridiculous!"

_"--You are the dancin queen, young and sweet--"_

"$#%&!!!"

_"--ONLY SEVENTEEN, OH YEAH!--"_

"OPTIMUS!!" Money changed hands again. Will furiously mashed at the off button without effect.

_"--It might sound crazy--"_

"Optimus! Damn you, come turn this thing off!"

_"--But it aint no lie--"_

Optimus, of course, was no where to be seen. But at Will's red-faced demand, the volume upped another notch, causing the very room to shake to the N'Sync boy band beat.

_"--BYE BYE BYE!--"_

Finally reaching the end of his rope (and incensed by the presence of several camera phones and video recorders in the audience), Will disconnected the iPod from his laptop. It didn't make one iota of difference-- the annoying litany of songs continued to blare impossibily loud from his laptop.

"--WHO LET THE DOGS OUT--"

Several people whistled and clapped. Almost everyone on base had gathered to watch Lennox's bloody defeat at the hands of the purple iPod, all very glad that the Captain was being knocked down a peg. Even trying to turn off the laptop didn't work-- it defiantly remained powered up.

"--I'M A BARBIE GIRL, IN A BARBIE W--"

Eyes blazing, teeth clenched, Lennox pulled his gun from its holster and shot the unfortunate iPod. It whirred its last gasp of life, throwing out a shower of sparks, and died. A curl of acrid smoke rose into the air like its mechanical soul. Dead silence descended on the room in the wake of the thunderous rapport of the gun being discharged and the sudden absence of music.

No one noticed that Optimus had entered the room until he spoke.

"That was a terrible waste of a gift, Captain."

Lennox spun around, eyes still glinting with restrained fury.

"With all due respect, that wasn't a _gift_. It was sabotaged," he spat.

"Nevertheless," the alien refuted, voice as smug as a cat lapping cream, "I see no reason to provide you with another one now that it is _your_ fault, and not mine, that it has been destroyed."

Optimus strode past them, heading for the door to the hanger, then stopped and looked back, blue optics alight with dark amusement.

"Oh, but since it seems that you will be in need of some sort of diversion during the 'boring' parts of our next mission--" Here, even Epps had the good grace to flush, "--I took the liberty of signing you up for a lifetime membership with the Harry Potter fan club. I believe you will find a delivery of all seven books on tape awaiting your signature, as well as many letters and gifts from the members of your Harry Potter blog who have found inspiration from your dissertations on Harry's infantile need to 'bitch' about every unfortunate circumstance in his life. Now if you will excuse me...."

Without another word the stately alien leader strode away, leaving an awed silence in his wake. Even Lennox appeared utterly sideswiped by the put-down he had just recieved. _Dis!_

A few days later, a sign appeared in the break room reading:

Living with giant robotic aliens: A how-to guide for day-to-day survival

Rule number 1: When in doubt, duck.

Rule number 2: NEVER get into a prank war with Optimus Prime. He gives as good as he gets.

Rule number 3: Don't mention the words 'Harry Potter' around Lennox unless you _like_ being shot in the balls.

/End transmission

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Author's Note: Ta-da! What do you guys think? I'm not very experienced with humor, so you'll have to let me know how I'm doing. This one-shot was inspired by a scene in the transformers book, "The Veiled Threat", in which Lennox bitches about not having an iPod. So no screaming at me that he's out of character-- the producers wrote him that way in the book, not me.


	2. Substitute Guardian

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NEST Files: Alien Encounters

Disc Two: "Substitute Guardian"

Approximate Terran Date: July 2, 2009 - July 5, 2009

NEST Financial log update-- Recorder: Samuel James Witwicky, Autobot Ambassador

_Um....yeah. Lennox yelled at me to do this report, so here it is. I can't blame the guy, really-- heck, I'd be pretty steamed if half a million dollars vanished from MY wallet! (Okay, technically that $500,000 came from the funds for NEST, but since Lennox kinda runs the place the wallet thing still applies). At first he wanted Bumblebee to refund the money, but when the....uh..._situation _came to light, he wanted ME to come up with half a million bucks! Well, either that or write this report. So I guess I'll have to try to sound professional about this whole thing, even though the story behind it will probably make me sound like a crack pot._

_Anyway, here it goes....._

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When Bumblebee first requested to be able to stay with him after Mission city, it didn't require any thought at all for Sam to say 'yes'.

After all, how cool was it that a super advanced alien robot he had sorta become friends with wanted to stay with him? _Him_, Mr. Ultra-nerd extraordinaire! For once in his mundane existence, he had the chance to be involved with something billions of people all over the world could only dream about. So when the benevolent yellow alien turned to his leader and said, 'I wish to stay with the boy," Sam could have done backflips, even while sporting three cracked ribs courtesy of Megatron.

As it turned out, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

In the weeks that followed, Sam discovered that wanting to 'stay' with him translated into becoming his guardian full time, even when there didn't seem to be anything more threatening to guard against than Trent or the neighborhood rottweiler. Although Bee came up with a few very creative solutions to neutralize even those low-level annoyances. Only a few days after the alien took up residence in his garage, the rottweiler developed an inexplicable fear of the color yellow, though no evidence could be found that the dog had been hurt in any way. And after the incident with Trent involving underwear, silly string, and duct tape (about which Sam still chose to plead the fifth), the jock no longer attempted to harass him in the parking lot. Or from across the room. Or even glare at him, really.

At first, having an alien guardian seemed like a dream come true. Having an alien guardian that _imitated a Camaro so hot it sizzled in the rain _was a scoop of ice cream on top of the dream-come-true. The fact that someone so powerful, so awesomely wicked liked him enough to volunteer to live in his garage sent him over the moon. He went out of his way to be considerate of Bumblebee's feelings-- he stopped eating in the car, he didn't sprawl across the seats (since he was, in essence, _inside _the alien's body), he didn't drive up over the curb or park next to cars likely to open their doors into the gleaming yellow paint. Whenever the slightest coating of dust or dirt appeared, he immediately broke out the hose and sponge and cleaned every crack he could reach, even going so far as to polish the hubcaps and towel him dry by hand. Sam probably wouldn't have devoted so much attention to a real car, but Bumblebee wasn't just a car-- the alien was his _friend_. And he wanted to do everything possible to keep him around.

He never considered just how seriously Bee took his job as a guardian; he never considered just how much Bee _wanted _to stay around-- or to what lengths he was willing to go to remain at his side.

The incident that finally brought home the depth of Bee's devotion to him did not begin on a dark and stormy night, or even on a fine spring day. Rather, it started at 2am on a partly overcast day in July. School had been out for about a month, and come August Sam would be leaving for college. Any other teenager on the planet would have been ecstatic at the prospect of two months of freedom followed by four years of booze and freedom.

For Sam, however, school had become a mental refuge; when he devoted his evenings to writing papers and studying for an endless stream of tests and quizes, his mind didn't have time to brood over the dark memories lingering just beneath the surface. Learning became a way not to crawl under his desk and huddle in fear at the resurgent image of Megatron leering down at him, Megatron tearing up through the building beneath him as he raced towards the roof. A carefree summer for others translated into two months of sleepless nights for Sam. To keep himself from the jaws of the nightmares, he would often lie in his bed with the light off until his parents went to sleep, then get up and put his clothes back on, sitting at his desk to read or listen to music or fill a notebook full of doodles.

But some nights, like that particular overcast evening in July, he succumed to the need for rest and drifted off despite his best efforts. The nightmares, sensing a moment of weakness, immediately crowded in. Long after dark, in those wee hours of the early morning when the world seemed suspended in amber, he jerked awake to the feel of mechanical claws crushing his chest. After a few disjointed moments of fumbling, he realized that the claws he felt were nothing more than tangled sheets stretched tightly across his arms. Great. Another few hours of precious rest squandered by the boogie man.

He sat up and rubbed his face, digging his fingers into his scalp. There was no point in trying to drift off to sleep again-- the nightmare would only resume right where it had left off. But though he dreaded the thought of spending the countless hours until dawn lying in his sweat-soaked sheets, neither did he have the energy to try to read or work on homework or something. He wanted to sleep, but if he tried to the monsters would come for him again, and there was no one to protect him--

Hesitating, biting his lip, he looked out the window. Bumblebee, quietly disguised as a yellow Camaro, sat in the driveway. As he watched, the alien discreetly switched on his head lights and flashed them once, then doused them again. At night, the alien should have been in the garage. He knew Sam was watching. Whether because of his sensors or alien intuition, he always seemed to know when his human charge could not sleep.

Sam didn't want to be needy and clingy, not knowing if he would accidentally scare Bee away. But only his robotic friend had that power to soothe his troubled sleep, chase away the demons.

So he did the only thing he could think to do at 2am, something that during normal daylight hours he would dismiss out of hand as being too childish, too cowardly, too _human_-- he slipped out of bed and padded for the door. His feet carried him down the stairs and through the familiar rooms of his house without the need for a light. He eased the front door open, praying to the god of hinges that it wouldn't let out a wall-rattling creak and wake his parents (who would surely send him back to his room or to a psychiatrist for going to see his car in the middle of the night), and eased himself out into the humid July night.

Bumblebee was there, waiting for him. Without starting his engine, he rolled forward on tires that could not be pierced or torn by nail or knife, slipping through shadows and patches of light that glided over his metal body as if over the surface of a still lake. A slight, almost apologetic click, and the driver's side door eased open, showing him a glimpse of the dark, warm interior. An invitation.

Shivering slightly, though the air was far from cool, Sam approached the disguised alien. But instead of immediately climbing in, he hesitated, hand on the door. All four of Bumblee's wheels turned 90 degrees, and the car body moved sideways towards him, bumping gently against his shins. Chuckling with awe, Sam rolled his eyes and slid into the offered seat, muttering, "Show off."

The door closed itself behind him.

Once sealed inside the car, the outside world reduced to vague shapes beyond the darkened windows, Sam relaxed minutely. Though he frequently told himself when behind the wheel that he was sitting in an alien's guts, he couldn't help but feel at ease when his skin touched the cool leather. Maybe it was due to Bee's skill at mimicry-- he didn't just _look _like a car, he felt like one too. Or maybe it was that there was nothing to be afraid _of _when sitting inside of him, since there was no object his subconcious could point to and go 'ah! monster!'.

But when the radio clicked on and soft music began to drift through the speakers-- when the seat beneath him warmed and molded to fit every contour of his body, slowly lowering back as he sank into its embrace-- he wondered if perhaps it was something else entirely, something that came over him whenever he put his hands on the wheel and Bee surrendered control, something that he had felt the very first time the tips of his fingers drifted over the dusty hood of a piece of crap Camaro sitting in a used car lot. He couldn't define what it was. Sometimes, when the revelation came over him that he was speaking to an alien, relaxing into the calculated hold of an alien, being watched over every second of very day by an alien with the power to level a city if he so desired, it scared the piss out of him. And he asked himself, what the hell am I getting myself into?

But then moments like that sleepless July night came around, and Sam found himself surrendering to it, giving into the subtle feeling of _otherness _and _not alone _that settled into the hollows of his bones as snuggly as interlocking cogs, and he wondered how he could have ever lived without it.

"Have I ever told you that you are one seriously awesome car?" he murmured to the air.

_::'Bout time!:: _an actor's voice chirruped softly from the radio.

"Hey, I know I've said it at least once."

_::Say it again! Say it again!::_

"I'm going to have to ween you off all this praise, Bee. You're getting arrogant."

Though he expected some sort of retaliation to the friendly jab, the radio abruptly shut off.

"Bee?"

With a voice the alien had begun to use with greater frequency in the year since the Allspark repaired his vocalizer, Bumblebee said, "We need to talk, Sam."

Alarm bells began to jangle fearfully in his mind. Whatever was significant enough to have prompted such a serious tone from the bouncy alien couldn't have been good news.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs from his mind. If it was anything to do with the Decepticons, he would need to have his wits about him. The sneaky bastards were smart enough to avoid all the traps and tricks that worked in classic alien-hunting movies. He couldn't resort to smashing them between two logs or setting them on fire. (Though when combined with a rocket laucher, the setting on fire thing presented some interesting possibilities).

The seat had reclined too far back to conduct a impromtu strategising session comfortably; he tried to sit up. Delicate little appendages he couldn't see shifted into existence behind him, plucking at his shirt, pulling him gently but irrestisibly back down. His heart shuddered in his chest at the unexpected touch (--_alien_--), but calmed again when he realized that whatever Bumblebee needed to discuss with him probably wasn't of world-ending-- or even immediate-- importance. He relaxed once more against the seat, noting that whatever manipulative arms the scout had created had shifted out of sight again.

"Nothing for you to worry about, Sam," he answered calmly, "But you should be aware that I will have to leave you for the next three days."

"Why?"

As soon as the question left his mouth, he wanted to kick himself. Way to be utterly selfish, Sam. The last thing he wanted was to cause his friend to leave in disgust by acting like a whinny, demanding little flesh bag _(--'maggot!'--)._

But rather than eject him into the grass, Bumblebee simply replied, "Optimus has called for a meeting with your government that requires the presence of every Autobot."

"Is it about that treaty thing you were talking about?"

"Yes," a thoughtful click, "Though personally I doubt anything will be accomplished. There are far too many things both sides refuse to compromise on."

Sam heaved out a sigh. "Well, darn it. I _told _Rachet they wouldn't like him sucking out people's brains!"

A laugh track blared briefly from the speakers.

"I don't know if we will be able to convince him to stop. He enjoys collecting them in mason jars that he hides under his desk."

Sam laughed. "He has a desk?" But then he choked, paling. It seemed like a joke, but Bumblebee sounded so _serious_. "....Really?"

"Of course not," the alien scolded him gently, sounding apalled, "Irondhide and Optimus would object to the mess."

Well, okay, he was 99.9% sure Bee was joking, though he noticed the scout didn't say that Rachet didn't _want _to.

"So...you'll be gone for three days?" Sam clarified, trying to bring the conversation back to more stable ground.

The soft, almost impreceptable edge of humor to Bee's voice dropped away. "Yes. I will need to depart in approximately seven hours."

"Oh." His heart sank. Even though he really didn't want the alien to leave, he had no reason to try to stop him from going. And three days wasn't really all _that _long of a time. But some part of him knew that every minute the garage remained empty would be a minute that dragged on at the lightning pace of growing grass or drying paint. "Well, try not to let the politicians drag you down too much." Then, thinking of the plans he had to see a movie with Miles the next day, he supressed a groan. No car = no ride to the theatre. "I guess I'm going to have to try to bum a ride off Mikaela...." he said, thinking out loud.

"You will not need to."

He tried to raise an elegant eyebrow at the dash but managed only to look surprised. It was far too late (or too early, depending on how you looked at it) to attempt facial movements more complex than yawning. "But I thought you said you would be leaving in seven hours?"

"And I will. Another vehicle for you to use while I am away should be delivered tomorrow morning around 10am."

Sam blinked. "Someone's letting me use their car for three days?"

::_--Why lease when you can buy wholesale?::_

"Wait. Are you saying....._you bought me a car_?!"

_::Give the man a prize!::_

He sat forward to gape at the steering wheel, and this time no robotic appendages stopped him.

"What kind of car? How much did you spend?" he questioned suspiciously.

::--Best deal in town!--::

"Seriously, Bee, cut it out with the radio. Where did you get the money to buy a car?"

The radio clicked off with a grumpy little whine. "NEST has a slush fund set aside for the use of Autobots not stationed on base."

"_Are _there any besides you?"

"No, not at the moment. Though hopefully there will be."

Though the modulated voice filling the car didn't change, Sam could sense the underlying wistfullness to the words. He leaned forward and patted the dash.

"Don't worry, Bee. I'm sure some of your friends will show up soon."

He tried to offer the alien a crooked smile, but it ended up stuck somewhere between a grimace and a frown. He wanted Bumblebee to be happy, he really did. But he couldn't help the little damp thing inside of him that mewled pathetically at the thought that maybe the scout wouldn't want to play guardian anymore when the other Autobots arrived.

The scout didn't answer, and the damp thing shriveled even further. Regardless of the warm air wafting from the vents and the tempered heat rising from the seat beneath him, he shivered, feeling very cold.

"Well, uh, I guess I'll leave you alone to get ready then, so you can do whatever...things you need to do to get ready."

As he reached for the handle, the locks engaged on the doors.

::_Come stay with me awhile_::

"Bee?"

"There is nothing I need to do to prepare." A long, heavy pause. Bee's voice dropped, growing very soft. "And I know you were disturbed by a nightmare."

Sam winced, realizing he was inadvertantly being selfish again. He was eighteen, not eight, he didn't need to go crying to his friend whenever he had a bad dream.

"It's fine, really. Look, I'm sorry if I woke you up or something-- I'll just go back to bed--"

But the door remained firmly locked.

"Stay, Sam. Please."

He couldn't deny Bumblebee anything-- he probably would have handed him the world on a silver plater if he asked, though he might stop short of sucking out people's brains and sticking them in mason jars.

Secretly rejoicing, he leaned back again, shifting onto his side and curling up a little.

"I guess I could stick around for a little while," he whispered, burrowing down against the seat and inhaling the exotic, spicey scent that Bee sometimes gave off. It didn't smell like leather, because no matter how much the alien's interior looked and felt like leather it was only an imitation, not the real thing.

As he slowly drifted off to sleep, lulled by the intangible thumming he could feel welling up from deep inside the alien, he knew that there was no where else on earth he would rather be.

Safe in Bumblebee's embrace, he slept soundly through the rest of the night. Never once did a nightmare sneak past his guardian's watchful eye.

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As promised, a flatbed trailer pulled up in front of the house at 10 on the dot, carrying on its back a shiny new car.

But as Sam went to sign the delivery and registration papers (all made out in his name-- yay for being eighteen), he realized that the sleek black vehicle he had seen from the kitchen window was not just _any _car-- it was a Mercedes Benz S-class. Sweet baby Jesus.

The driver seemed understandably baffled as he gaped at the luxury car, completely unable to tear his eyes away, and scrawled a lopsided name on the dotted line that may or may not have been his own. Though Sam was no expert on cars, the Mercedes must have cost _at least _thirty grand. No matter how many times he ran it through his brain, he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that Bumblebee had blown $30,000 on a top-of-the-line German car for him to use _for three days_.

As soon as the Mercedes had been unloaded in the driveway (watched by his gobsmacked parents from the front stoop), Sam began to go over it with a fine-toothed comb inside and out, not caring if he drooled a little in the process. And if his parents hadn't been there, he might have been tempted to lick it to see if it tasted as good as it looked. Deep leather seats, genuine wood veneer around the instrument panel, a speedometer that reached 200mph on the far right. The entire thing was absolutely and indisputably _gorgeous_. It even made up for Bumblebee being gone-- but only a little.

In an apocalyptic fit of unbridled glee, he rushed for a phone and called Miles, telling the other boy to meet him an hour early in the movie theatre parking lot. If anyone would appreciate the beautiful machine sitting in his driveway, Miles would. In addition to being a suicidally absent-minded geek, he sometimes moonlighted as a car buff. Though Sam wouldn't say why, exactly, he wanted an earlier rendezvous, he assured Miles that he was in for the surprise of a lifetime.

All the rest of the morning, Sam couldn't sit still. Every nine minutes or so, he would rush back outside to oogle his car, once coming dangerous close to the proposed licking before a neighbor passed by walking his dog. If he was going to give in to his primal impulses, he didn't want to have witnesses around to embarass him with stories about it later.

When it finally came time to drive to the movie theatre, he cackled and rubbed his hands maniacally as he slid behind the wheel of the black beast. It handled like a dream, far better even than he could have imagined.

The drive ended up being far too short for his liking, and he all but pouted as he pulled into the deserted end of the parking lot. As he opened the door and stepped out, he saw Miles sprinting towards him as if he had spotted the salvation of the world rather than a black Mercedez. Or maybe he saw an ice cream sundae-- with Miles it was hard to tell.

"Dude!" the sandy-haired boy cried, pulling to a halt and ghosting his hands over the front bumper, not quite touching the glossy paint, "Where did you get this?!"

Trying to look the epitome of cool, Sam only shrugged and leaned casually against the side of the car.

"It was a gift. No big deal."

"No. Big. DEAL?!" Miles did a full lap around the car, even ducking his head to look beneath it. But still he seemed reluctant to actually run his finger down the slick finish, as if even the thought of touching it would be tantamount to blasphemy and cause him to burst into flames. "Do you even know what this _is_?!"

"A car."

"This," he breathed, not appearing to register his purposefully obtuse response, "Is not just ANY Mercedez S-class. It's an S-600 _Guard_."

"Which means....?"

Straightening up, Miles spun around and grabbed the front of his shirt, shaking him a little, face ready to crack in half from the enraptured grin spreading from ear to ear.

"Dude! Wake up and smell the conspiracy, man! This thing is a virtual _tank_. V-12 engine, 517 horsepower, bullet proof windows, armor plating-- someone could put a grendade under the back tire and it wouldn't even scratch the paint!!"

Sam reeled, blinking at the black Mercedes. Sure, it was nice. _Real _nice. But it looked like a regular car, not a panic room on wheels. But thinking about how an _alien _could look like a regular car, a wisp of suspicion began to coil in his gut.

Miles shook him again with glee, then pushed him away and returned to admiring his new car. "What kind of paranoid freak gives someone a Mercedes Guardian as a gift?!"

Brushing aside the question, Sam asked, "How could they put all those things in there for thirty grand?"

Miles only gave a weak little laugh, dropping his upper body onto the hood and spreading his arms as if to give the car a hug. "Man, if one of these things only cost thirty grand, I would convince my dad to mortgage the house so we could get one. Even _looking _at one of these will cost ya close to 500 grand."

Sam nearly swallow his tongue. "A half a million dollars?" He rasped, "He bought me a half million dollar car to use for _three days_?"

Miles gave a sobbing little laugh, looking as though he would dearly like to lick the black paint. Not five minutes ago, Sam would have heartily joined him. But now, Sam could only stare at the car in vague horror.

A Mercedes armored vehicle.

A Mercedes _Guardian_.

Oh, Bee....

....please, no.....

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Without a doubt, the three days that followed were the longest he had ever spent in his life. He avoided going out whenever possible just so he wouldn't have to drive (or even look at) the Mercedes. Miles pestered him constantly for rides, as did Mikaela (after Miles called her behind his back), and he ended up snapping at them to get them to leave him alone.

His father, upon discovering exactly what kind of car his son had been given, insisted that they park it in the garage. Sam had wanted to protest, wanted to scream that the garage was _Bumblebee's _spot. But the thought that perhaps the yellow alien didn't _want _to live in the mouldy space anymore kept him from saying a word.

Inside his mind where no one could hear him, he whimpered and pleaded, begging God and the stars and his chair and a bobble-head Jackie Chan doll for his suspicions to be wrong. He would almost sell his soul for the evil black car not to symbolize what he feared it did.

Bumblebee had bought him an armored car. And not just any jihadist-repelling car-- a car bearing the ironic name 'Guardian'.

Scratch that, he _would _sell his soul for Bumblebee-- his friend, his angel, his guardian-- not to be replaced by a cold, unfeeling machine, one whose wires and gears did not hum with life, whose leather seats were merely leather and nothing more, one that could not talk to him or annoy him with cheesy songs on the radio, one that would not lull him to sleep with a wordless lullaby and chase away the demons haunting the twisting corridors of his mind. But it seemed that now his alien guardian had decided to nudge him towards an alternative that would, theoretically, protect him from the hazards of day-to-day life and even the random drive-by shooting. It made sense, intellectually. Bumblebee was an ageless robotic warrior-- not a babysitter, not a tool to be stuffed away in the leaky garage and taken out when needed. He deserved the chance to go be with the other Autobots. Sure he had done the guardian thing for a while to protect him from the Decepticons, but now that things had returned to normal it was logical that he would want to be relieved of his duties.

All very logical. Perfectly logical. Perfectly cold. It made him need to throw up.

But by the time the phone rang the evening before Bumblebee was supposed to return (--_not to stay, never to stay-- only to say goodbye_--), Sam had realized he was being unforgivably selfish. At first he had planned to beg the Autobot not to go, latching onto his foot to be dragged along the pavement if need be. But then slowly, unwillingly, he came to terms with the fact that he had no right to ask him to stay, no right to weep and wail at his feet to try to guilt him into it. Bumblebee had been more of a friend than he could have ever asked for-- he wouldn't be a jerk and make him feel bad about something he both needed and was entitled to do.

It would probably kill him to do it, but when the time came he would let go without a fuss. He owed his friend that much.

But when Mercedes Benz called and asked if the car needed to be picked up again, he realized he wouldn't get as much time to prepare as he had originally thought. For a moment he could only stare mutely into space, feeling his world crumble away beneath him, vaguely aware that the attendant at the other end of the line was trying to get his attention.

_"Hello? Mr. Witwicky?"_

Finally, he managed to drag himself far enough from his haze to reply. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here."

_"I asked if you wanted to have the black Mercedes S-600 Guard picked up tomorrow morning as per your initial request."_

Sweet, wonderful Bee was letting him chose. The gentle alien wouldn't leave if he asked him not to. But now, knowing that he wanted to be free, he would never be able to live with himself if he denied him the chance.

Sam drew in a rattling breath. "N-no. Just leave it. I'm....I'm going to be using it for a while, I think."

If the attendant were bothered by his disjointed answers, he didn't show it.

_"Of course, sir. I'll cancel the pick up order right now."_

"Great. Thanks."

_"....Done! You're all set. Have a wonderful evening, and enjoy your new Mercedes."_

".....okay."

But the line had already gone dead. He slowly hung up the phone.

It was done.

_I'm going to miss you, Bee...._

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Needless to say, Sam did not sleep well that night. He tossed and turned, trying every conceivable postion-- on his back, on his side, on his stomach, with his feet on the pillow and his head near the footboard, diagonally, under the bed, in a chair, sitting against the wall, on the bed again, under the covers, on top of the covers, with the covers around his head like a turban. He knew-- _knew_-- that he would never get to sleep. But around 5am, just as the sun was rising, he did exactly that.

If he had been awake, he would have heard the rumbling purr of a familiar engine pulling up out front, followed several minutes later by the crunch and shriek of folding metal and popping glass, the sounds muffled by the concrete walls of the garage.

But far away in dreamland, Sam heard nothing at all.

....At least until he was awoken a few hours later by a shrill cry of outrage and despair.

Blinking back sleep, feeling cold and miserable without knowing why, Sam meandered out of his room and down the stairs. His mom was still yelling, but she didn't sound as though anyone were bleeding or dead (or even as though she had spotted an incoming invasion of suited agents swarming up over the lawn), so he took his time.

His parents, both dressed in hastily donned robes, stood before the open front door, gazing out at the yard. His mother craned her neck this way and that, hissing and spitting angrily, while his father merely bore an expression of dismay so profound that his loyal dog might have just died. But given that his father didn't even really like Mojo that much, and given that Sam himself had seen the Chiwawa alive and well as he passed through the living room, he doubted that was the case.

"Hey. What's going on?" he grunted, still feeling the vague sense of melancholy, and joined them at the door.

"Sam, tell that robot of yours to get that hunk of scrap off my front lawn!" his mother screeched, curlers bobbing wildly in her hair.

His father could only shake his head, mouth hanging open. He looked close to tears. "A half million dollars. Just like that, and a half million dollars goes right down the toilet."

"What is it?"

Peering around the door, Sam answered his own question.

Sitting innocently in the middle of the front lawn, crushed into something roughly the shape of an enormous paper ball, was the black Mercedes S-600 Guardian. Or rather, what _used _to be a black Mercedes S-600. In its current configuration, Sam doubted even a scrap yard would find a use for it. No inch of black paint remained unscratched, no metal plate unbent. The windows had crumpled like the rest of the car, opaque with scrawling spider webs of cracks, though due to their specicalized design they had neither shattered or broken free of the doors.

And beside it in the driveway, smugness radiating from every spec of yellow paint, sat a gleaming yellow Camaro.

Bumblebee.

Sam leaned weakly against the doorframe, the reason for his inexplicable sadness flooding back to him. The dealership had called and he had told them what he thought Bumblebee had wanted to hear-- he had told them not to take away the armored car. Yet despite the freedom that Sam had willingly given him, the alien scout had returned. And if the state of the poor Mercedes was anything to go by, he had both listened in on his conversation with the Mercedes attendant and strongly disagreed.

Sam had been wrong the whole time. The armored car hadn't been a ploy to escape his role as Sam's guardian. Bumblebee was his his _his_, and it was going to stay that way.

But even the blissful flood of joy that knowledge caused could not dampen his awe as he carefully approached the ruins of the black Mercedes. Standing in the grass, Sam closely examined it, noting the dents that could only have been made by enormous fingers.

He turned dizzily to Bumblebee. His friend. His nightmare-chaser.

His _Guardian_.

Folding his hands together on top of his head, gaping at the ball of scrap, he was unable to resist the joyous, inane little impulse to state the obvious, even if his voice did come out a little breathless with wonder.

"You turned an indestructable car into lawn sculpture."

There was no audible response, but for just a moment it seemed that pavement beneath his feet rumbled with a challenging growl, a possesive hum.

_Note to self: Any car encroaching upon Bumblebee's territory is unlikely to survive the encounter._

And he wondered just what his alien guardian would do when he discovered that college freshmen weren't allowed to bring cars.

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	3. For All Time

Warning: This chapter deals with a character death. AU from Instability.

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For All Time

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"....Sam?"

**Error.**

**Error.**

**Memory lock engaged.**

**Encrypting files....**

**Complete. Data erased**.

................

Bumblebee stared out at the barren landscape, watching the swollen, bloody sun sink beneath the jagged horizon. Ten million, five thousand, three hundred, twenty one years since he had first arrived on the planet once called Earth. Strange how only now its substance suited its name. When there had existed humans to give the planet a name, over 70% of its surface had been covered by water. There had been grassy fields and vast northern forests, ice-capped seas and murmuring streams. There had been life of every possible description, more than any Cybertronian had encountered on one planet before-- bacteria, fugi, plant matter, invertebrates, reptiles, insects, avians, and mammals of unimaginable variety. For a universe composed of 99.999% emptiness, the third planetary body in the Sol system had proven a wellspring of life, refreshing and invigorating.

And, of course, there had been the humans. A singularly endearing and confounding race of organics capable of both great kindness and great cruelty, the embodiment of contradiction. They had sought at all moments to uncover the meaning of their existence-- always striving to see the 'bigger picture'-- while at the same time focusing on meaningless trivialities such as appearance and material posessions. They had longed for truth and independence, but found themselves afraid of both when offered, denying the first and shunning the second, hiding behind the collective. Some had toiled on the path of unspeakable evil, while others had devoted their numbered days to helping the many. There were even a few who had given themselves to the darkness-- stepped willingly through the last gateway from which none, human or Cybertronian, had ever returned-- in order to save another.

But that was before. Now, the planet Earth lay empty, reduced to the dry ash of its name. When the sun had expanded into a red giant and the air temperature had soared to 200 degrees, the ice caps had melted, the seas had dried up, the hardiest plants had withered and died. It had happened slowly, slowly enough to allow the humans time to prolong their fate and retreat from their advanced cities deep beneath the ground, deep where it was still cool enough to survive. But as the oceans shrank and the trees turned as brittle as glass-- as the carcass of the last animal struggling along on the planet's surface finally became entombed in sand, untouched by non-existant predators and perfectly preserved by the dry heat-- they could no longer grow enough crops to feed their people. As the water went away, drawn up into a super-heated atmosphere too hot to allow life-giving rain clouds to form, the humans began to go away too.

Morbidly amused, Bumblebee realized that a human author-- long forgotten centuries before the end of his race-- had accurately predicted the end of his world.

"This is the way the world ends," he muttered to himself in a langauge that had long since died from the tongues of man, "This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper."

The dusty ground didn't answer. The rocks didn't answer. The bloody crescent winking at him from the horizon didn't answer. His comrades had long ago departed for the farthest reaches of the stars, so they didn't answer either. They had tried to bring Bumblebee with them, but after he had nearly deactivated Ironhide in the ensuing fight, they decided to honor his wish to stay on the deserted rock-- but not without leaving the scout with a long-range transmitter should he have ever wished to follow them. The transmitter might have carried his voice to another living being if Bumblebee hadn't crushed it. He carried the pieces with him whenever he decided to wander, just to have something different to look at besides red dirt. If the cities had not already crumbled and dissolved, he might have tried to explore them, speaking into their darkened interiors, imagining that another being awaited just beyond the corner, listening to him silently.

Just so he wouldn't have to be alone. Utterly alone.

Something halted the ongoing train of his inner monologue, and Bumblebee glanced towards the last line of temporary code that had circled through his processor. _Alone_.

But that wasn't right. He wasn't alone. Not anymore.

And he turned his optics to the not-dirt thing he suddenly realized that he held in his arms.

**Error.**

**Emotion cores in flux. Processors unsta--**

**Blocking....**

His memory banks opened, and a flood of recorded data cascaded into his central processor.

Of course. He had found the thing some time ago, though he couldn't pin point exactly when due to a glitch in his chronometer. Bumblebee started to send a memo to his secondary processor to fix it, then decided not to bother. What was time when the past existed only as a memory file and the future was an endless road of empty days filled with nothing but sand? One minute might as well have been one year, or one century, for all the difference it made.

So instead, he settled back against the rock outcropping behind him and focused his attention on the not-dirt thing he held. An attempt to scan it to discover its identity yielded only corrupted data.

**Self-installed block encountered.**

**Rerouting.....error. Results corrupted by secondary looping program.**

**Erro--**

But that was okay too. It was good company, even if it _was _inanimate. Something besides dust, dirt, earth.

"I had a friend once," he told it, "Even if I don't remember anything about him. You ever have a friend?"

No answer.

"Really? That's nice."

Bumblebee picked up one of its four appendages and let it drop again, listening to the hollow rattling sound it made, poking at one of the lumpy joints. What was it?

"Was he a good friend?"

The bulbous little calcium lump attached to one end was turned towards him, the two black holes staring at the crook of his elbow. A tattered wisp of data fluttered through his processor, showing him a human gesture of affection from eons ago. Feeling a sudden, inexplicable rush of affection for the strangely constructed thing in his arms, Bumblebee bent forward and brushed the lower half of his face plate against the rounded plane of the bulbous thing, just above the two black holes. Then he pulled back, the feeling gone, and wondered why he had done something so illogical.

"Well, that's silly. He couldn't have _always _been a good friend."

He stuck his finger up through the hollow in its central portion formed by several arching calcium struts, wiggling it around a little. He sensed that something should have been there. Something important.

"I bet he was awful to you, sometimes. I bet he did terrible, unspeakable things."

A shudder ran through his servos as he spoke, though he hadn't the faintest idea why. An errant program-- still limping along despite the millenia old line of code designating it for destruction-- caused him to pull the lanky object closer to his body, tucking it in against him protectively. Even though there was nothing to protect against. Even though it was only a thing that had no need of protection. Even though it was d--

**Error. **

**Program sweep severed by self-installed block.**

**Thought terminated**.

"And you knew it, too," he whispered, dormant mimicry systems flaring to life and adding a touch of darkness to his words, "You knew what he wanted to do long before he tried to do it. Maybe not at first-- you were too unsure of your hold over him then, too modest to even consider it. But you knew. You always knew."

Bumblebee slowly petted the smooth mineral struts, finding the contact strangely conforting.

"And then, when you finally saw the truth, you asked him to do you a favor. A _favor_. As if asking your friend to betray you could be considered a _favor_."

He focused his optics on the two dark holes, peering inside of them. Searching the shadows. Searching. For what, he didn't know. The truth was so close. Just out of reach.

The studied the hollow interior of the bulbous thing (a skull, an ancient memory file supplied helpfully, though the word meant nothing to him), wondering what should have been there. Something was missing. Something. Someth--

**Establising temporary shunt....**

His emotion cores began to heave with a powerful feeling he could not name. Bumblebee ceased his methodic stroking and pulled the not-dirt object (_english term located: skeleton_) recklessly close to his metaloid skin, nuzzling it, strangely desperate to _do _something, though he hadn't the faintest idea what.

"Why didn't you want to be saved?" he pleaded with it, "Why did you ask him to leave you alone? He would have followed you. He wouldn't have left you alone in the dark. Why did you tell him to stay away?"

**Error**.

**Core systems overheating**.

**Warning: temporary shutdown requested**.

"He did an awful, terrible thing, you know. He didn't go with his other friends like you asked. Even after the darkness took you, he didn't leave. He couldn't. Not when you were here. Some of you, at least."

Bumblebee paused, cycling air through his seizing vents. He couldn't be sure how long he sat without speaking (given the obvious malfunction of his chronometer), but when he accessed his langauge program he discovered that he had been quietly muttering 'bad bee, bad bee, bad bee...' to himself the whole time. How strange.

"He doesn't remember you now. Not much about you, at any rate. He doesn't remember your face or your voice, or the way your hands felt when they gripped the steering wheel or trailed against his paint--

**Warning: cascading systems malfunction.**

**Shutdown imminent.**

"He knew that eventually he would forget, even given his superior storage capacity. So he stayed, determined to hold on to the last part of you he had for as long as he could."

The sun finally sank beneath the horizon, its lingering rays painting the sky an eery green. Not orange. Not pink. Green. Different particle composition, different reflected colors.

"But even _that _he eventually lost. Now he doesn't even recognize you, nevermind that you look a little different from before. So he must have been a bad, bad friend-- a real friend wouldn't forget your name." Suddenly, desperately earnest, he bent his head to the side of its skull and whispered, "He tried, you know. He tried so hard to be a good friend. He did exactly what you asked and left you to travel into the eternal night all alone, even though every moment was agony without you, the future a bleak and despairing road to nowhere, void of purpose or meaning. But he couldn't leave-- even if he couldn't die, he still couldn't leave, though you made him promise to."

Bumblebee keened softly, something sparking ominously within his chest. He ignored it. "Did you like cherry tree he burried you beneath? He wanted you to have something beautiful to look at, something not so sad. Did you see him there everyday beside you, never moving? The others tried to pull him away, but he wouldn't go. He stayed there until little spiders spun webs in his wheel-wells and vines grew up around his windows, because he didn't want you to have to be alone in that lonely little hole. He longed every moment to follow you, but you asked him to stay. So he stayed. He stayed just like you told him too."

**Beginning shutdown procedures.**

Bumblebee sensed that there was something there, something struggling to be remembered. But whenever he tried to access his memory banks he was interrupted by a firewall.

"You made him promise not to follow you. You made him promise to go with his friends. But he had to break part of his promise, because even if he couldn't be with you he could still be close to you. He could still try to keep you company in the dark, at least a little. So he stayed when his friends went away. Don't be afraid," Bumblebee petted the skeleton gently again, "Even if he doesn't remember you anymore, he'll never leave. He'll be here with you forever and ever and ever."

**Error. Block encountered. Block--**

**Attempting to override....**

**Error. Memory files sealed. Acess den--**

**Rerouting pathways. Engaging emergency virus removal, target: self-intalled firewall.**

**Removing....**

**Access denied. Access denied. Ac--**

**Complete.**

**Access approved.**

Memories untouched for tens of thousands of years suddenly burst open, filling his processor with previously supressed knowledge.

A skeleton. He was holding a human skeleton.

DNA analysis of the bone marrow confirmed his blackest fears.

No.

Nononononononononono.

**Error.**

**Error.**

**Error.**

**Processor overflow.**

**Memory core overflow.**

**Emotion core overflow.**

**Attempts to shunt unsuccessful.**

Bumblebee would have given anything at all for it not to be true. But even his spark itself seemed too slim an offering to make the story he had just told nothing more than an insubstantial tale, no more real than dust.

Because now he knew that the annonymous 'friend' of whom he had spoken had not been a fanciful creation, but himself.

Because the object he held was not simply an oddly constructed piece of hard organic matter.

After every last living thing on the planet had finally died, he had returned to the spot he had occupied for so many years, digging deep into the hard earth, bringing up the last physical remnant of the one who had left him so long ago, bones preserved by the moistureless air and prevented from rotting into dust.

Logically he knew that the skeleton held no life and could not hear him.

But logic seemed very out of place in a world that allowed the human to be dead in the first place.

"....Sam?"

**Error.**

**Error.**

**Memory lock engaged.**

**Encrypting files....**

**Complete. Data erased**.

................

Bumblebee stared out at the barren landscape, watching the swollen, bloody sun sink beneath the jagged horizon. Ten million, five thousand, three hundred, twenty one years since he had first arrived on the planet once called Earth. Strange how only now its substance suited its name.

Suddenly realizing that something rested in his arms, Bumblebee turned his optics to the not-dirt object. He opened his memory banks, frowning at the reading from his chronometer. It must have been glitched. Surely over 2,314 years had not passed since he had found it. Not when he still sat beside the place where he had dug it up.

He started to send a memo to his secondary processor to fix the glitch, then decided not to bother. What was time when the past existed only as a memory file and the future was an endless road of empty days filled with nothing but sand?

One minute might as well have been one year, or one century, for all the difference it made.

So instead, he settled back against the rock outcropping behind him and focused his attention on the object he held.

Strange little thing.

He wondered what it was.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Author's Note: Before anyone kills me, this is a 'what if' chapter rather than a tie-in to Instability. The idea started to gnaw on my ankle and wouldn't leave me alone.

Sorry guys, but the next chapter of Instability is going to be delayed a bit. I know I promised a swift update, but I haven't had time to write much between catching the flu and packing for (stressing about) college. It WILL be up in under two weeks, but just not in the next day or two. I am working on it, don't worry.


	4. Paradigm Shift

Acessing......

* * *

NEST Files: Alien Encounters

Disc Three: "Paradigm Shift"

Approximate Terran Date: 28 months after the destruction of the Fallen

* * *

NEST Personnel Log, entry 879-- Autobot: Ironhide

Update code: 251771

Auditer(s): Autobot Rachet, NBE--6

Reason for change to entry: _**That slagger finally worked out the dent he had in his personality core, that's why.**_

___I believe this is MY entry, Mudflap. Kindly desist from your intrusion. _

_**XP**_

Additonal notes: _When our team-- consisting of myself, Optimus Prime, Jazz and Ironhide-- first arrived on earth, our weapons specialist demonstrated an alarming proclivity to view the homo sapien species as mentally, technologically, and physically inferior to our own race, believing in the disposal of humans as a secondary course of action rather than as a scenario to be avoided except in the most desperate of situations. However, upon first encountering the human youngling Annabelle Lennox, I observed a shift in his action/inaction priority commands that placed the destruction of human life under a selective self-deterring firewall that would prevent him from accessing it as a conceivable battle tactic unless he himself had sustained injuries to 75% of his body and at least two of his comrades were in immediate peril. _

_ Or, in other words, Ironhide experienced a dramatic change in his world view-- a paradigm shift, if you will...._

* * *

Warriors of all stripes were trained (or, in Ironhide's case) programmed not to ask questions. Being too curious on the battle field-- needing to know everything that was happening and _why _your commander was ordering you to march for the left flank, _why _you should hit the dirt and shut up when you were told to hit the dirt and shut up-- was an excellent way to end up dead. Or worse, an excellent way to get your teammates killed when you were just a second too slow, hesitating just an instant too long while your mind asked 'why' and the hidden sniper you didn't see put a neat little hole through their heads and yours.

So after having spent almost six thousand years on one kind of battle field or another, whether it be in an asteroid belt or under a sea of liquid ammonia, Ironhide had almost forgotten what it was like to hear someone ask him a question that did not pertain to enemy numbers or weapons upgrades. The war-hardened veteran was even more at a loss when the question itself came not from a member of his own kind, but rather from a tiny organic arthropod youngling of the designation 'Annabelle Rose Lennox'.

Perhaps his emotional cores would not have begun to fluctuate so oddly if it had only been one question, or even one interrogation session. But no, the sparkling-stage creature, with its pale, hairless little limbs and watchful jelly eyes, emerged at a very young age as an adept interrogator and fledgling torturer, hounding him from the moment she could speak with a never-ending flow of questions for which his logic relays could not provide an immediate and satisfactory answer. And when he could not adequately provide the information requested during the first round of questioning, the devious little being broke out the big guns, turning her innocent, soft little eyes to meet his glacier optics and squeaking 'why?'.

If it were up to Ironhide, the single glyph question would be erased from every mainframe on Cybertron and from the memories of each and every Cybertronian. It served no purpose other than to annoy and delay, regardless of what Wheeljack and Ratchet and any of the other armor-less, weak-sparked scientists may have said. And a 'why' could also, as Ironhide discovered during his first core-wrenching rendezvous with the human youngling, be compounded upon with another 'why'. Repeatedly.

Looking back years later on that first meeting, Ironhide realized that it marked the beginning of the instability within his moralities programs, an instability which would later cause a system-wide rift in his primary processor and the unwilling reordering of the code which walled his very spark. If only he had known what was to come scarcely four terran years after his arrival on the third planet in the Sol system, if only his battle scenarios could have anticipated the intangible struggle that the defenseless organic would soon ignite within him, a struggle that he would, ultimately, lose, perhaps he would not have let the four year old human come toddling into the barn.

The barn-turned-garage, the spacious wooden dwelling usually relegated to Ironhide's use whenever he was in residence at the Lennox ranch, had long been off-limits to the youngling Annabelle. Ironhide had scoffed to himself when he had first heard the Lennox pair instructing their offspring not to go near the talking truck (which the child did not find unusual in the least despite the marked lack of sentient talking cars on Earth). They clearly did not comprehend the precision control the weapon specialist could exercise over every part of his body. Unlike humans, whose limbs and extremities were operated by a crude network of neural receivers with the propensity to send inaccurate data to the central nervous system, every metalloid cell composing his frame was entirely under his control-- no errant programs would cause him to misjudge the force of a blow and thereby crush every bone in her body; no sensor blip would cause him to lose track of her beneath his feet and put her in danger of being stepped on. Captain Lennox had obviously forgotten Ironhide's performance at Mission City.

But regardless of the blow to his pride, Ironhide was thankful that the messy, thoroughly _organic _youngling would not try to clamber all over him, thus reducing his potential efficiency if a battle were to suddenly break out. Humans could be useful and rather clever at times, but overall Ironhide did not understand what Prime saw in them or why he insisted on keeping so many of them around. Save for the thin layer of warriors in their society, most of humanity was useless. Cowardly, weak, disgusting, and hopeless stupid. In simple terms, they were inferior.

Prime often scolded him, telling him to make nice with the humans; Bumblebee occasionally hissed dark threats over his internal receiver whenever he made a comment about the youngling called 'Sam' the scout persisted in shadowing. Ironhide did not understand why they both seemed to have lines of code missing from their logic relays. If their (and by 'their' he meant Autobot) purposes were better served by eliminating troublesome humans, they should do so. There were six billion of them, after all-- the loss of one, or even one thousand, would hardly matter. Yet still the other Autobots insisted on acting as if each human were equal to one of their own species, guarding them and sheltering them as if each of their organic lives were as precious and rare as a Cybertronian spark. Well, all right, he could compute the rationale behind overseeing the safety of the useful human warrior known as Lennox and possibly even the Sam creature who had brought the last Prime out of deep stasis lock, but surely the boy's two annoying progenitors could be done away with. They were nothing but an incessantly chattering pair of liabilities, after all.

The afternoon Annabelle Lennox crept through the open barn door, Ironhide wondered to himself if she were not a liability also. He remained silent, the optics of his robot form locked onto her consideringly, as she slid through the crack in the door and flattened herself up against the wall, blinking up at him. Although she had seen his robotic form several times before, she had never viewed it from up close. Yet despite her apparent awe, she showed no signs of fear-- her heart rate remained steady, as did her respiration. That wasn't a good sign. Ironhide knew that it would not go over well with Lennox and his mate (or with Optimus) if he deactivated their offspring, but neither did he want to be compromised by the presence of an organic hanging from his armor, especially when there had been a Decepticon citing earlier that week not one hundred miles away. It would be difficult to bring his cannons online quickly enough to incapacitate a clever sniper if he had a bothersome human clinging to his arm. No, he couldn't have that happen. The only recourse available to him was to dial the captain's private number and instruct him to come collect his offspring.

But just before he could access his communications array, the tiny organic opened her mouth.

"You're big," she stated matter-of-factly. Ironhide merely shuttered his optics in surprise, not certain if human social customs dictated a response in this circumstance. For a moment he debated informing her that all size was relative and that there were transformers much larger than he, but realizing that the youngling would probably not be able to grasp his reasoning he settled for a much simpler answer.

"Yes."

The creature blinked at him again, then smiled. By Primus, whatever insidious virus had infected Prime and the others had obviously gotten to him too, if the reflexive pulse in his emotional cores in response to that bright smile was anything to go by. His primary processor opened file after file of reference data citing the expression of contentment in various organic species, trying to convince him that a primitive gesture involving partially involuntary facial muscles should not be attributed such significance, but a secondary processor humming away at the back of his system's mainframe continued to whisper that such a tiny detail _was _significant, that he should try to do everything in his power to keep it there.

She pushed herself away from the wall and began to approach him, still smiling. He frantically snatched at his communications array once more, eyeing her fleshy hands and the thin film of organic oils covering them. Though he was not fastidious by any means, he did not relish the thought of being touched by those hands.

"Really _really _big!" She cried exuberantly.

And then she giggled. His communications array closed itself again of its own accord. Blast it all to the Pit with a grease gun, the organic creature had managed to catch him unawares and now had him by the throat with a new and utterly devastating weapon he had not anticipated. He had to find a way to keep her from giggling again-- the tinkling, bell-like sound had seized his shriveled emotional cores in a steel vice, and if he heard it again....well, he didn't know what he would do.

"Do you have a point?" He muttered gruffly, shifting his legs in unease like a sparkling as she skipped across the dusty floor towards him. Blast it! Where had this restless energy come from? She was only a short-lived, inferior creature-- how could she affect him so?

Ironhide sent a prayer of thanks to Primus as she stopped short of his right foot, merely clasping her hands in front of her and craning her neck to stare up at him.

"Why are you so big?"

That infernal squeaking voice again, so high and alien and...what?

"I do not understand your inquiry. Rephrase."

She stared rocking from side to side, twisting her bare feet, digging her toes into the dirt, smiling and smiling. An involuntary shudder ran through his frame.

"Why are you so _big_?"

Hmm. Apparently organic younglings mistook emphasis for rephrasing.

"It allows me to have more space to store weapons."

There. That answered her question, and it was mostly true. Now if only she would turn around and _leave_--

"What's a 'weapons'?"

If ever there was a time Ironhide longed for a Decepticon to show up it was surely now, if only to have some excuse to flee from the youngling and her insistent questions and terrible smile that stripped him of his armor more effectively than acid.

Again Ironhide began to give a lengthy and detailed answer, and again he reminded himself that he was talking to a being scarcely outside the sparkling stage who would not understand an in-depth briefing of battle tactics like her male progenitor.

"Weapons are devices used to kill your enemy."

The rounded little face scrunched up in confusion as the innocent mind tried and failed to grasp the concept of killing, of death. His emotional cores gave another terrible pulse at the thought of something so rare as a creature who had never known death becoming extinct-- one day she _would _know death, would experience it herself, and the innocent before him would be no more. For someone hardwired for destruction, Ironhide found himself strangely frantic at the thought of this one thing being destroyed.

"Why?"

Okay, now the weapon specialist was truly lost. He tilted his head to the side quizzically.

"Why what?"

"Why do you have weapons?"

Was the child deaf?

"So that I can kill my enemies, as I have said."

The twisting started up again, and this time the creature fisted her hands around the hem of her dress and started absently flapping the garment, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.

"Why do you want to kill your en-em-en-ies?"  
"Because they would attempt to kill me first, if I did not."

"Why?"

For a long moment Ironhide simply couldn't find the words to answer. Despite her butchery of the word 'enemies', the girl obviously understood the concept enough not to request having it explained. Why, then, did she fail to grasp such a simple cause-and-effect scenario? Yet even the thought that Lennox's offspring might be mentally deficient did not disturb him as much as the sudden contrast between the two of them-- he learned, worldly, hardened, and she...disconnected. Ignorant. Young. _Innocent_.

His voice emerged markedly quieter as he replied, "Because we are enemies."

Sensing the change that had come over him, the girl abruptly ceased her nervous fidgeting and stepped forward, softly laying her hands against the armor covering his lower leg and gazing up at his bright, alien, deadly optics with such terrible, wrenching purity that he felt programs inside of him that had survived millennia begin to splinter and break apart.

"Why are you enemies?"

"Enough with the 'why's'!" He suddenly roared, abruptly losing his hold on his patience. His logic relays could offer no explanation as to why her inquires affected him so, or why the sight of her recoiling away from him in fear sent phantom pain signals flickering through his processor. But he could not seem to stop himself-- in her ignorance she had stepped on a landmine, blundering stupidly into the darker regions of his processor that he dared not examine himself.

"For the love of Primus, stop asking why! This is simply the way it is!"

If only she knew how many of his soldiers had wailed the same question as they lay dying in a pool of their own fluids, or how often he had asked it of himself after coldly blowing the head from one of his beloved students simply because they had ended up on opposite sides of the line. But she was backing away from him, whimpering, tears welling in her eyes, hands fisted under her chin in bewilderment and terror, _and she didn't understand_. She had to understand it; if such purity, such innocence could accept it, then perhaps it was justified, perhaps it hadn't all been just a useless, senseless waste of carnage-- _but she wouldn't stop looking at him with those horrified eyes!_

"Existence is meaningless," he ground out, no longer shouting, "There is no fate, no divine plan-- the evil rein victorious and the good die horribly. Friends become enemies and enemies become friends sometimes for no reason at all, and that's just the way it is."

He looked towards the corner of the barn, unable to watch the organic condemn him with her eyes, hating her for tossing away the struggle of so many good mechs like something foul simply because it frightened and confused her. So focused was he on his internal thoughts-- a phenomenon that almost never occurred for the ever alert weapons specialist-- he didn't register the gentle pinging of his sensors as she slowly began to approach him again, tears drying, eyes shifting from fear to sadness.

"Your questions cannot change it," he murmured, "Cannot stop it, cannot alter the terrible truth or erase the past; you are nothing but a small, insignificant little speck whose existence means absolutely nothing and_---_

Softly, gently, a human cheek rested against his armor, small arms reaching as far around his leg as they could and hugging tightly. Ironhide froze, every thought program and servo abruptly stalling at the contact, and for a long moment there was nothing but the feel of a warm, soft, pliable little thing cuddling down against him, nothing but the sound her tiny heart made thumping steadily within her chest, nothing but the inexplicably mesmerizing sight of sunlight creeping through the crack in the door and teasing strands of her blonde hair with flashing gold, nothing but the organic, _human _smell of her filling his oral factory senses-- nothing but the absolute certainty that he had just lost a battle whose purpose he could not name and that the universe had suddenly reoriented itself with the primitive sparkling at its center.

Primary processor no longer entirely in control of his actions, Ironhide found himself leaning forward and capturing the tiny creature between his hands, plucking it from the ground and lifting it high into the air.

Annabelle squealed with delight, wriggling in his grasp, fear utterly forgotten at the novel sensation of being hoisted high into the air. Ironhide tried to ignore how much a part of him enjoyed that.

"What was that about, youngling?" He growled.

The youngling apparently mistook the sternness in his voice for playfulness, because a moment later she was overcome by another fit of giggles. That wasn't right; that wasn't how it was supposed to be. A moment ago she had been trembling. Why now was she so buoyant?

But the rebuke forming in his vocalizer died just as suddenly as it appeared when she leaned over as far as she could with his hands beneath his arms and hugged his wrist, making small contented noises and once more burrowing against his armor, silky strands of hair brushing the armed missile rounds loaded into his arm cannon.

"Mommy says that when people are sad they need a hug," she informed him primly, never noticing how she placed her head in the path of instant death, never noticing that the metal strut her blunted fingers gripped concealed a sharpened blade longer than her entire body.

She was so tiny, Ironhide suddenly realized. Watching something so innocent, so infinitely precious touching him with gentlest intent, trying to comfort the killer, the slayer, the destroyer, broke something inside his primary processor, inverting his perceptions. No longer was her size a mere number, it had become a physical thing that made _him _larger rather than _her _smaller, his hands becoming unwieldy clamps of cold metal and sharp edges far too large and clumsy for something so delicate. Though 1,342,990,781 cycles of his situational analyzers concluded that his central processor remained in full control of every circuit, servo and relay-- regardless of the fact that 1,342,990,781 possible outcomes of that moment did _not _have his muscle cables suddenly malfunction and drop her fifteen feet to her death, or a glitch in his weapons control systems suddenly launch a missile that would punch a hole through her torso, or the circuits in his hands spasm and contract, crushing her in his grip-- the fact that 1 such cycle _did_ terrified him beyond all reason.

Helpless to do otherwise, paralyzed with fear, Ironhide froze in place, doubting that even the sudden appearance of a rogue Decepticon could convince him to move. What in the galaxy had moved him to pick her up? Why had he not simply called the Lennoxes and informed them of their absent offspring's whereabouts? But the soft weight of her in his hands and the knowledge that he could snap the thread of her life in an instant made it very hard for his thought programs to produce anything but disjointed fragments of code. She was organic, a feeble, messy, fickle creature, undisputedly inferior in strength and intelligence, and......

.....and he had never known that he could love something so much as he did when she hugged his black metal hand.

Perhaps it was a good thing that William Lennox and several other armed soldiers, all hefting weapons loaded with thermite rounds, chose that moment to smash through the door and center his head between their crosshairs. Without the distraction, he didn't know what he would have done.

"FREEZE! DON'T MOVE!"

"STOP WHERE YOU ARE, DECEPTICON!"

"..._Ironhide?!"_

The weapon specialist tilted his head in acknowledgement of Major Lennox, who was the first one to recognize the familiar black shape within the barn.

"Good afternoon, Will."

Lennox swore vehemently, lowering his weapon and ordering for the soldiers following him to do the same.

"Ironhide, what the hell is-- _ANNIE_!"

The sight of the human warrior carelessly dropping his weapon (which he would never do without being under a great deal of stress for fear of it accidentally discharging) and sprinting towards him finally jarred the weapon specialist from his stupor. As the human came within reach he gingerly lowered his youngling (_his?) _to the ground and set her back on her feet. She didn't remain that way for long, however-- just as her toes made contact with the dirt she was swept up again into her creator's embrace and crushed to his chest.

Epps, having also followed the Major into the barn, stepped forward and retrieved the dropped weapon, raising a questioning eyebrow at Ironhide.

"What's goin' on, big guy? We heard a lot of shoutin'-- that D-con show his butt ugly face around here?"

Ironhide tried to focus his optics on the dark skinned warrior, he really did, but he couldn't seem to tear his attention away from the tiny body being cradled in Lennox's arms.

"Unfortunately," he grunted in response, "If he had, I would have made sure he didn't _have _a face to show."

In all actuality, he would have done quite a bit worse if any Decepticon had dared to come near his Annabelle, but it didn't seem appropriate to describe in vivid detail all the excruciating torture techniques he would have used in front of a sparkling.

After the initial shock had worn off and the human soldiers had determined that there was not, in fact, a decepticon hiding in the barn, they began to trickle in ones and twos back to the main house where Lennox and his mate appeared to be holding some sort of party.

Lennox and Annabelle were the last to leave after Lennox had finished thanking him for protecting his daughter. Privately Ironhide wondered just what he had been protecting her from besides himself, but he decided to let those thoughts go unvoiced. When at long last Lennox turned to walk back to the family dwelling, the youngling leaned her head over his shoulder and waved at him with one tiny little hand.

He watched them go until they have vanished from view over the top of the hill, and even then he continued to monitor their progress with his sensors. Little did either of them know that the weapons specialist kept several thousand of his six billion sensors trained on her constantly from then on, never letting her move beyond his range. Little did Annie herself know that the place where she had touched him that fateful afternoon would continue to burn even several thousand years later with the memory of innocence.

* * *

Author's Note: Yay! I finally did something transformer related! Hope you guys like this small-ish oneshot—I saw all the annie/ironhide fics and decided that I had to get my version out there.


End file.
